Women's Bodies, Women's Wisdom (85 page)

I believe that the circumstances surrounding a woman’s breast implantation—why the surgery was done—are as crucial to her freedom from side effects as any potential problems from the silicone. Women with implants should know the following: Thousands of women have
no problems
with implants. Drag queens almost never do. The same holds true, in general, for postmastectomy reconstruction patients and for those who have had implants to equalize the size of their breasts. If you want to breast-feed, you should also know that recent studies have failed to show any increased incidence of immune problems in babies whose mothers had silicone implants. However, though 40 percent of women with implants had no problems with breast-feeding, one study showed that women with implants were three times more likely to experience breast-feeding difficulty than women who haven’t had breast surgery. Implants placed through an incision in the nipple were associated with the least success.
¹¹⁷

If you do decide to have implants, make sure that your diet supports your immune system. Include vegetables rich in beta-carotene, phytoestrogens, and plant lignans. (See Program to Promote Healthy Breast Tissue, page 352, for more details.) Make sure you get lots of omega-3 fats. I’ve been very pleased by how well the encapsulation on implants softens when women follow an inflammation-reducing diet that includes enough omega-3 fats.

Breast Surgery to Decrease Breast Size

Sharon’s breasts started to develop when she was only eleven years old. By the time she was fifteen, she wore a size 38D bra. She felt embarrassed at school and was self-conscious about sports. Running was uncomfortable for her, and in the summer she developed painful rashes under her breasts from sweating. Buying clothing was difficult because her hips were slim relative to her chest. At about thirty she had a reduction mammoplasty—a breast-reduction procedure. Even though she now has visible scars across each breast, she is thrilled that she had the procedure done.

Erin, a strikingly beautiful woman in her thirties, came to see me for a tubal ligation. During her physical, I noticed that she had the characteristic scars of a breast-reduction procedure and asked her when she had had the surgery. She told me that she’d had it in her mid-twenties, because she had simply been tired of all the attention that she got from being both beautiful and having an ample breast size. Though her size had only been about 38C— not unusually large—she still had elected to have the procedure.

One of my friends has a jogging partner who is about a 38C as well. Men slow down their cars and make comments as she jogs by. Even twelve-year-old boys feel that they have the right to follow her on their bicycles and make comments!

These experiences are typical of women who have chosen to have their breast size reduced. Though this procedure often decreases or eliminates nipple sensation, leaves scars, and may make it difficult for a woman to nurse her baby, most of the women who’ve had this surgery are very happy with the results. Janette Hurley, M.D., a family physician and breast-feeding advocate in Calgary, Alberta, told me that in her practice, women can often nurse successfully following reduction mammoplasty, as long as they feel good about their choice to breast-feed and have no difficulty appreciating their breasts’ normal function.

Women have had a range of experiences with cosmetic breast surgery. Plastic surgery of the breast or any other area of the body is neither right nor wrong—the demand for it merely reflects the values of our culture. The changes it effects can be very rewarding, but as Naomi Wolf so aptly points out in
The Beauty Myth,
they are not a panacea. Surgery will not heal a woman’s life or her relationship with her body. The most important factor in a successful outcome, aside from a skilled surgeon, is the context in which the procedure is done and the expectations that the woman has of it.

The Power of the Mind to Affect Your Breasts

Research has shown that it is possible to increase breast size and firmness through hypnosis and creative visualization. In four separate studies, hypnosis not only increased breast size and firmness in those who completed twelve weeks of treatments but also resulted in decreased waist size and even weight loss in some. In one study, volunteers were asked to feel the warmth of a towel on their chests, or to otherwise feel a sensation of warmth in their breasts. Then they were asked to feel a pulsation in their breasts, and to merge that with their heartbeat, allowing heart energy to flow into their breasts. They were instructed to practice this same imagery in their home once per day for twelve weeks. At the end of this time period, 85 percent experienced measurable breast enlargement (the average was 1.37 inches). In this study, those who were good at visual imagery got better results, but even those who weren’t good at it got results. It did not matter how small a woman’s breasts were to begin with; the technique also worked for women over age fifty.

In another study, the subjects were asked to go back in time, while in a mild trance, to an age between ten and twelve, when breasts normally start to grow. The suggestions for this group included feeling swelling sensations, tightness of the skin over the breast, and slight ten derness. The subjects were asked to put their hands on their breasts during the sessions, and the suggestion was made that they could feel their hands being gently pushed upward as their breasts grew larger. Usually, the subjects’ hands could be observed to rise a few inches off the chest during the course of the suggestions. The third component of the treatment consisted of telling the subject that she was at a point in time two to three years later. It was suggested that she imagine herself after a shower, standing nude in front of the bathroom mirror. She was asked to inspect her appearance, noting the larger and more attractive breasts that resulted from the posthypnotic suggestions. The authors of this and other studies suggest that the reason breasts may not have achieved their full growth potential in adolescence is because there was some adverse message the girl was receiving about her femininity or her breasts. In one study, the researchers worked with the study participants to clear this material, but not always successfully. In the first study, more than half of the subjects dropped out “for personal reasons”; obviously, using hypnosis to regress to this vulnerable time may be fraught with emotional peril for some women, though if a woman can work through this safely, the potential for emotional healing (and getting full breast development) exists.

In a third study of eight women, ages twenty-one to thirty-five, who underwent hypnosis, all gained from one to two inches in breast size except one woman who didn’t want to be a female at all and instead wished she were a man. The greatest breast size gain in this study was made by the older women in the group who were married.
¹¹⁸
(Hypnosis CDs for increasing breast size are available on the Internet; check out the products by certified hypnotherapist Wendi Friesen at
www.wendi.com
.)

Clearly, if women can use the power of focused intent and visuali zation to change their breast size and consistency, we also have the power to maintain and create healthy breasts by imagining our breasts as healthy and beautiful. If our bodies are nothing but a field of ideas, let’s make sure that those ideas represent our best interests.

If You’ve Had Breast Cancer

A thirty-eight-year-old midwife whom I met at a conference had had a breast removed at the age of twenty-one. Instead of having reconstruction, she wore a prosthesis that could be removed. She said that in looking back, she realized that she had profoundly rejected her breasts early on in life because she’d been given the message since birth that she should have been a boy. She attributed her breast cancer to her chronic negativity about being female. Now, more than twenty years after her mastectomy, she has decided to discard her prosthesis. She told me that the “fake” breast created a block between her chest, her heart, and the loving energy that this part of her body needed to feel. She said that now when she gets a hug from someone, all of her chest gets in on that loving energy, too.

For many other women, breast reconstruction following mastectomy can be a blessing. If this is your truth, spend some moments regularly appreciating the work of the surgeon, combined with the healing power of your body. And with or without a breast implant, if you’ve had a mastectomy, touching your scar with respect and reverence is a help—an acknowledgment of your sacrifice and ongoing ability to flourish.

11
Our Fertility

A fertile, sexually active woman using no contraception would face an average of fourteen births or thirty-one abortions during her reproductive lifetime: altogether, a mind-boggling disruption in this period of hoped-for independence and equality for women.

—Luella Klein, M.D., former president of the
American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology, 1984

A broader vision of fertility is one that is not solely determined by whether or not one has a biological child. Fertility is a lifelong relationship with oneself—not a medical condition.

—Joan Borysenko, Ph.D.

F
ertile.
How does that word feel? It feels rich, juicy, yin, abundant—as in fertile fields, fertile minds. It conjures images of dewy youth and infinite possibilities. No wonder all women have a desire to be fertile, to know they could have a child if they wished. It is this feeling of being fertile, this potential within, that so many desire and identify with. Fertility is a form of female power, a power we must work with responsibly and consciously if we are to truly flourish. The number one predictor of a woman’s status worldwide is whether or not she has dominion over her fertility. The ability to say when and how many when it comes to having babies is one of the most significant factors leading to the greatly expanded role of women in business, education, and self-development in the last fifty years.
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We have now reached a time in our planetary his tory when we must learn to procreate from our conscious choice, not just to fill up an empty space inside ourselves or to try to keep a man. These latter reasons for getting pregnant are remnants of an unconscious tribal programming that no longer serves us. The late writer and midwife Jeannine Parvati Baker described herself as both pro-choice
and
pro-life: When she was seventeen, she made a decision that she was ready to become sexually active. She also vowed that she would never make love with a man whose child she wouldn’t willingly bear, should she become pregnant inadvertently. She says that it took her three years to find such a man. Now that is a powerful example of taking responsibility for what we create! Baker’s story, like the stories of birthing women in chapter 12, are beacons for how women might be if they loved and appreciated their bodies and their creative capacities.

Ideally, prenatal life, close to the mother’s heart, is bliss for the unborn. Women need to choose to live out their pregnancies wisely, because the way they do so affects both themselves and their offspring for generations to come. Though Sigmund Freud coined the term “infant amnesia” to explain the fact that most people don’t consciously recall much that happened to them before the age of three, the truth is that our bodies always remember our life in the womb, birth, and early childhood. Parents have a huge influence on the mental and physical attributes of their children, and this influence starts long before birth and continues throughout life.
²

All of us retain the imprint of our entire lives within our cells, starting before birth. Our lives begin in the water of amniotic fluid, our first environment. This period and early childhood are the critical times when most of our expectations and potential are created. Prenatal and birth memories, and their impact on the unborn, are among the many reasons why women must learn to manage their fertility well. We must become conscious vessels.

When a child perceives that she is loved and wanted from the very beginning, her sense of safety, security, and belonging creates an enor mously resilient immune system as well as bone and blood health that set the stage for a lifetime of health. On the other hand, many women have told me that they knew their mother didn’t want them, and that they had felt it their entire lives. “I know I was conceived during my mother’s grief for a son who died nine months before,” one woman said. “I remember taking this on in utero. I vowed to try to make it better for her. I’ve spent sixty-four years trying to do that for her. It has never worked.” One menopausal woman, Beverly, said that her mother visited her on her fiftieth birthday with balloons and a rose, then proceeded to tell her, “You are fifty. Your life is downhill from now on. You’re not a kid anymore.” She told her daughter how much she had suffered in giving birth to her, and how ugly Beverly had been when she was born. She went on to sing the praises of her son, Beverly’s brother, saying that that labor had been virtually painless and that her son had been beautiful ever since birth. Listening to her mother, Beverly felt that in a perverse way she had been given a true gift on her fiftieth birthday. Her mother had confirmed what she had always thought—that she had been rejected since birth.